The Perfect Psychopath
by NinjaNovelist
Summary: Melody Pond was born to kill the Doctor. We all know how the story ends, but how did it begin? A short collection of oneshots depicting what it was like to be trained and conditioned for that one purpose. Rated T for dark themes.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Steven Moffat owns Doctor Who, and thus can do what he wants with it. Even if it means ripping our hearts out, burying them six feet in the ground, digging them back up, sticking them back in our chests and getting them pumping again, only to rip them out again half a season later.**

Back and forth. Back and forth the chair did creak, its rickety rhythm as soothing as a lullaby. Back and forth.

"How would you like to hear a story, my dear?"

The child nodded her assent, mouth preoccupied with sucking her tiny thumb as she sat curled into Mother Kovarian's side. Every night they've done this, and not once did the woman ever return the embrace.

"Well, let's see now..." she began, making a show of leafing through the large book in her lap. "Which one shall I tell you tonight?"

The little girl didn't answer, but there was no need. Mother always chose the same tale regardless.

"Hmm, how about 'The Bringer of Darkness?'"

Not bothering to wait for a reply, the eye-patched woman launched straight into the story.

"There once was a dangerously powerful wizard. No one knew his true name, for it was shrouded in as much mystery as the man himself."

Though she had heard this story so many times she could reiterate it word for word, the child was enraptured all the same by this terrifying yet fascinating wizard.

"He traveled far and wide, taking along with him his closest friends whenever he saw fit. One was a beautiful princess with a head full of flaming hair..."

The girl glanced over at the single picture frame sitting on her shelf. Trapped inside its borders was the prettiest woman she had ever seen, holding a baby. Though the lady was smiling, there was just a hint of sadness hidden deep within her eyes.

"... the other was a brave warrior, a mere peasant who had somehow achieved the impossible in capturing the heart of the princess."

Despite being barely more than a year old, the child had retained vague wisps of memories from long ago, of being held in those strong, protective arms that differed so greatly from the gentle and loving face smiling down on her.

Mother Kovarian began to stroke the young girl's hair lightly, which for some reason gave her more chills than the fairytale. "Together they had a child named Melody Pond."

She was aware that that was the name that all the big people called her, but during storytime Melody was a different person entirely. Clever and fearless, she was everything Mother Kovarian and the others could want for their task, and the little girl could only hope that she would live up to their expectations.

"But the wizard had begun to grow weary, bitter and cruel in his old age," Mother Kovarian continued. "He was falling into the way of darkness, taking anyone and everyone along with him. The good man, the healer, the wise man, had resigned himself to blood-soaked war to get what he wanted, and it was left to one small order of heroic souls to silence the monster once and for all."

Melody instinctively shifted closer into Mother's side, though she wasn't sure whether she feared the man or what was to befall on him.

"The order rescued little Melody from the wizard's destructive clutches, but they had no choice to deprive the princess and the soldier of their beloved daughter. And what did the wizard do to heal his companions' broken hearts?"

The next part she whispered into the child's ear, making her blood turn to ice. "Not a thing."

With one final creak Mother Kovarian lifted herself from the roker, gathered the little one into stiff arms, and began leading her to her cot. "Time went on, and Melody grew. The order taught her many things, raising the poor thing into something worthwhile."

Once she laid the child down, Mother at last concluded her tale. "In the end, it was the once weak, vulnerable little Melody Pond who ended the evil wizard and his reign of darkness, allowing the light to waft in like a melodic song throughout all the universe."

And with that, Mother Kovarian turned on her heels and began walking away, but not before pausing in the doorway to turn out the lights.

"Sleep well, Melody." Then she left the child to find sleep on her own.

Melody trusted her mother, and with the innocence that only a child could manage she believed every word of the bedtime story. Well, except for one thing.

_Melody Pond is not weak, _she thought to herself. _She is a superhero._

**If you've read one of my former stories, "As the River Flows," this idea of Melody being told a story of the Doctor as part of the brainwashing process will sound familiar. I just decided to expand on it a little.**

**Okay, I am going to attempt the impossible. I'm on vacation, so I'm gonna try going for daily updates! There will be five chapters total. Wish me luck.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, that didn't take long for the whole daily update thing to go down the gutter. Oh well, kinda had a feeling that was doomed from the start.**

**And I'm just going to apologize in advance for this chapter. I don't know what in the world possessed me to write this, but the idea simply refused to leave my brain. Feel free to hunt me down and stick me in a mental institution.**

"Now, my sweet," Mother Kovarian began. "Let's review. What is a Time Lord?"

"An alien from the planet Gallifrey that can live for centuries and understand the passage of history and workings of time better than any other species in the Universe, bending and twisting it to do his own bidding," the two-year-old answered mechanically. "There is only one left in existence: the Doctor."

"And why must he be destroyed at all costs?" the woman continued.

"Because silence will fall when the question is asked."

Despite her heightened intellect, Melody still didn't understand what that meant. But judging by the way that Mother's body would go rigid and face morph into something almost akin to fear whenever that phrase was spoken, she knew that it must be something of unimaginable horror.

"And how is he to be stopped?"

"By killing him in the middle of his regeneration cycle," Melody replied.

"Good." The word was not any kind of praise. The child had simply achieved what was expected of her.

For a moment silence truly did fall, but then Melody was overcome by a sudden bout of curiosity. "Mother, what _is _a regeneration cycle?"

Mother Kovarian, in the midst of gathering her things, paused to answer the child's question. "When a Time Lord dies, he forms a new body so he can live on. This is why he is so difficult to kill."

Melody's blue eyes grew wide in awe. "So the Doctor can live forever and ever?"

"A Time Lord has thirteen lives," Mother explained, though it was clear she was starting to lose patience. "But it is our duty to ensure that he never gets that far."

The toddler nodded, but after a moment her carrot colored head cocked to the side as yet another question rose to the surface. "But Mother, why does it have to be _me_ who-"

"Enough, girl!" the woman commanded harshly. "There is no need for you to ask such frivolous questions. You have a job to do, and that is all you need to know. Now, silence!"

Melody did as she was told, lowering her gaze to the ground as she fought back a sniffle. She had learned long ago never to cry in front of Mother. Tears only showed weakness, and it wouldn't do for the savior of the Universe to display any sort of vulnerability.

Mother Kovarian leaned over to run a hand down Melody's cheek. "What you must remember, my sweet," she continued, deadly quiet now. "Is that you owe a service to the whole of reality. The Doctor is dangerous, and but I'm going to share a little secret, Melody: so are you. The two of you are more alike than you think. If placed in the wrong hands, you could grow to be almost as powerful as him, and just as terrible. But you are going to prove the facts wrong, my dear. By ending one man, you will save millions."

The woman rose and turned to go, leaving Melody's tiny head spinning with questions. And before her mind gained the sense to stop herself, one of them tumbled out of her mouth.

"How am I like the Doctor?"

Mother Kovarian froze in place, and Melody feared that she would start yelling at her again. But when the woman turned around, the corners of her mouth were turned up in a tight-lipped smirk as she looked down upon the child, as though her naïveté was the most amusing thing in the world.

"Well you are both inquisitive to a fault, for one thing," she began. "But you should know something, my sweet: curiosity killed the cat."

She reached to her side. "You want to know about regeneration cycles?" she asked as she introduced Melody to the sleek barrel of a gun. "Here, I'll show you."


	3. Chapter 3

Even at the tender age of three, there wasn't much that Melody did not know. She possessed an intellect unmatched by nearly any adult she came upon. No matter the difficulty of the subject, she could learn any piece of information, understand it, and retain it.

So anything that didn't make sense terrified little Melody to no end.

They were always there. When she ate, when she slept, when she trained, the faithful aids of the Silence were constantly lurking in the background. She knew it was true, even if she couldn't remember.

She had learned to recognize the presence of a Silence. Being part Time Lord meant that she could recognize any inconsistencies regarding the passage of time. Each time she had an encounter, it felt like skipping a step on the stairs, being ripped from time and then placed back in a few moments later.

_They believe I don't have a clue,_ Melody thought to herself as she blew round after round of bullets through a series of targets. Out of the corner of her eye she could just make out those monsters staring at her, analyzing her performance.

_Good. That will make my plan all the easier to carry out._

The thing about these mysterious creatures is that though you can't remember anything of them when you aren't looking, you can remember _everything _when you are. Over the years Melody had been collecting whatever information she could find, storing them in the section of her memory that the Silence would remove.

As she blew a lock of mussy brown hair from her face, once again she was reminded of why she was making all of these precautions. If she ever failed in achieving her objective, if for whatever reason she could not kill the Doctor... well, last year's regeneration had taught her that once she ceased to be of use, she was expendable. And if she had to face the Silence as an enemy one day, she wanted to be prepared.

Out of nowhere, Melody began to grow angry. Not at Mother, not at the Silence; no, they were just doing what was right. She was angry with the man who had caused her to be snatched away from her fairytale family, placed in a home where she constantly lived in a state of terror, where one misstep could lead to her undoing...

Melody turned around and glanced to the back of the room, where a row of eleven faceless dummies stared unseeingly back at her. Before she had always avoided having to look at them, shivering uncontrollably those few times she dared peek at the many forms of her greatest enemy. But now she held her gaze as she steadily raised her blaster to the first one in line.

She moved down the chain methodically, shooting each of the replicas in turn. All those silly frills were now not so frilly. The scarf was reduced to a bunch of tatters. That raw piece of celery was now well-done.

Mother Kovarian would be so proud.

"You..."

She shot off the button holding his ascot in place.

"Will..."

She left his leather jacket smoking.

"Pay..."

In a moment of blind fury, she miss-aimed and blasted her target in the toe of his right converse shoe. This she quickly rectified with a bullet straight into his black-rimmed glasses.

Before the last one she paused a moment, taking in the one monster more terrifying than the Silence. Out of all his ridiculous outfits, this one was by far the worst.

"_Doctor._" Though she normally spoke his name with a tremor in her voice, now she spit out in pure contempt. Then with one final shot directly through his bright red bow tie, Melody Pond holstered her weapon and turned away.

Now then... what had she just been doing?


	4. Chapter 4

Even after four years, Mother Kovarian would still perform their nightly bedtime ritual without fail. After their story, still the same one every time, Mother would tuck the child in and say "Sleep well, Melody" before turning out the lights and leaving the room.

But there was another part to the routine that Mother Kovarian didn't know about. Not once has Melody ever had a good night's sleep in her life.

By day, she is the the perfect psychopath: unfeeling, unmovable, unafraid. But by night, alone with her thoughts and fantasies, she was just like any other little girl with a fear of the dark.

Peeking out from her safe haven beneath the covers, Melody watched with drawn breath the shadows as they shaped and shifted along the walls like some demonic dance. Sometimes she could swear that they took the figures of only the most terrifying creatures, the most frequent visitor being the twisted Time Lord himself. There was a reason he was called the Bringer of Darkness.

But most times the shadows wouldn't take any form at all. More often than not the darkness was nothing more than an endless void, consuming everything in sight as it crept closer and closer to the safety of her bed.

Melody dove back under the covers. She knew it was silly to think such things, but she felt that there was something more to the darkness than what she was seeing- or not seeing, she supposed. And she feared that one day that something would come and get her.

She had no idea just how right she was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry, this past week has been absolutely insane. But here's the last chapter!**

Melody Pond, future savior of all time and space, bespoke psychopath of the most fearsome man to ever live, was running for her life.

_The Spaceman is going to eat me._

That single thought played over and over again in the child's head as she ran. Right now she was no hero for the cause of the Silence. She was only a lonely, frightened little girl.

She nearly crashed into the door she had chosen at random to make her escape. But the moment she wrenched the door open she found herself staring straight in the blank face of an impossible astronaut.

Melody had been raised never to ask questions. Mother Kovarian had always preferred blind, doubtless loyalty, and any questions were only a reminder of _the _Question, the one that must never be asked. But looking into that cold, empty mask, all the frustration and confusion and fear the girl had been suppressing for years finally spewed forth.

"Why me?" she cried, tears springing to her eyes. "Why am I so special? Why do you need _me_?"

Suddenly her mind flashed back to all the times that the prophesy had been spoken aloud. Every time it happened, Mother Kovarian would close her eyes to conceal the fear glistening in them, and the other members of the Silence would experience similar reactions.

Then it hit her. They were all just as terrified of the Doctor as she was. They placed the burden of eliminating him upon the shoulders of their weakest link so they would not have to bear it themselves.

_The Spaceman is going to eat me. _

Melody backed up until she hit the opposite wall, and she turned to start running again. She wasn't entirely sure what she was running from. Maybe it was the spaceman. Maybe it was Mother Kovarian and her mysterious minions.

Or maybe it was the responsibility of the task that had been left to her to perform.

But before she had the chance to take one step, a glove grabbed hold of her arm, and even with her inhuman amount of strength she couldn't hope to break free.

"No! No! Let me go!" she screamed as she was lifted off the ground, but it was all for naught.

_The Spaceman is going to eat me._

After all the training and conditioning she had gone through, it had only led to this. None of that could help her now. What she needed was a miracle. Something she had previously deemed as only a fairytale, something she had once thought of as foolish to put her hope into, for it would always ultimately let her down. But as she was being stuffed into the suit by an invisible monster, Melody found herself desperately wishing on stars and praying to unknown gods for things she hadn't dared to dream of.

She asked for a kind and loving princess.

She asked for a brave knight in shining armor.

But most fervently of all, she asked for a good wizard.


End file.
